Lost in Time
by Jessie Wings
Summary: The Fourth Doctor, Sarah and K9 arrive in a grey, mostly abandoned 2090s Melbourne, where the few that live are threatened with reeducation. In an effort to prevent it, the Doctor and a local girl, Atlanta, accidentally cause the whole thing.
1. Two Years Too Late

In the centre of a blank, circular white room, there were a large hexagonal control panel. Just not understandable by many a person, luckily the person who owned the room knew what every (well, nearly every) button and lever did.

In fact, this room was a control room to a time-and-space machine called the TARDIS. The sole person – if you could call it that – in this room was a robot dog, called a K-9, sitting dormant next to the control panel.

At that moment, a man – or rather, a Time Lord – strolled in breezily from the next room. He was known as the Doctor, and he owned the TARDIS, despite the fact that it was originally stolen. The Doctor – this Doctor – wore an impossibly long scarf that got torn, unravelled, burnt, cut, dirty and stomped on with unfortunate regularity, a brown jacket with big pockets for packets of lollies and a brown hat covered his mop of curly hair.

"Hello, K-9," the Doctor greeted his robot dog, whose head immediately moved upwards.

"Greetings, Master," K-9 answered him.

"Tell me, K-9, where did I say we were going again?"

"Earth, Master."

"Earth!" the Doctor vaguely remembered his plan now. After eight years, his plan was to actually fulfil a promise he made to one English journalist. His reason why was a bit silly, when he came to think about it: he was lonely. Rather hilarious really, the President of Gallifrey flying through time and space in a rickety old machine that had been in for repairs when he stole it...

With a loud shudder, the TARDIS landed.

"Where are we, K-9?" the Doctor asked.

"Earth, Master."

"Ah."

* * *

A woman outside stared at the box in surprise. This woman was possibly in her late twenties, with brown hair. She was rather short but pretty at the same time: and furthermore, she recognised the box. 

She watched as the door opened to reveal the Doctor, and a robot dog she didn't recognise: K-9. Before the Doctor even had time to close the door behind K-9, she gave him a reasonable glare.

"You have some nerve, Doctor."

The Doctor looked up. "Hello, Sarah Jane."

Sarah waited for a moment, then asked, "no explanation?"

"Explanation?"

"I last saw you two years ago. In a suburb that wasn't South Croydon."

The Doctor wondered if lying would prevent the seemingly inevitable explosion. "Wasn't South Croydon? Unbelievable! Anyway, it hasn't been two years for me, Sarah."

"How long has it been?"

"Why, about the amount of time it takes for the TARDIS to go through the vortex."

"Correction, Master. It has been -"

"Shut up, K-9."

Sarah smiled. "That old dysfunctional TARDIS, eh?" She turned her attentions to K-9. "So where'd you get him?"

"Well, technically, I made him."

"What does he do?"

"Well, mostly he blasts us out of trouble."

Sarah's smile faded. "Us."

"Oh... K-9 and me."

"But you only went to Gallifrey."

Before the Doctor could stop him, K-9 told Sarah, "that statement is incorrect. I have been in service six years."

"President of Gallifrey," the Doctor started to explain, not realising it hardly constituted an explanation. "I nearly forgot when I defeated the Sontarans there. They tried to destroy my TARDIS!"

"Doctor," Sarah chided the Doctor. "You're not telling me the truth."

"Aren't I?"

"No. For a start, K-9 keeps trying to correct you."

"Well, K-9 thinks he knows everything."

"Negative, Master," K-9 put in.

"Doctor," Sarah said, controlling her temper with difficulty, "tell me the truth."

The Doctor sighed. "I tried to go back to Earth, Sarah, but I landed in a forest in the far future. Now, you, um, remember when I temporarily left Earth while you were battling that big robot? I, uh, saved the day on a spaceship and promptly forgot. I arrived twenty-five thousand years later where the ship crash-landed." Sarah began to laugh, but was interrupted. "There I met a girl called Leela who – would you believe – refused to get out of the TARDIS."

"Where is this Leela?"

"I left her with the first K-9 and Commander Andred."

"I said where, Doctor, not who with."

"Oh, not much of a planet really."

"Where?"

The Doctor gulped. "Gallifrey," he mumbled quietly.

Sarah stared at the Doctor. "Gallifrey," she repeated, rather more loudly than the Doctor thought necessary. "If this Leela woman was allowed to go to Gallifrey, why wasn't I?"

"Well, once we _got_ to Gallifrey I did have to banish her. As President."

"I see." Sarah spoke with contempt in her voice. "And then what did you do?"

"I travelled with K-9 for six years. And K-9's lovely company really, but he got so dreadfully boring that I remembered I was supposed to come back for you.

"You were," Sarah said, "but not now. I gave up on you. I got my career back together."

The Doctor nodded. "I see. In that case..." The Doctor turned around and opened the TARDIS door for K-9, then walked through it himself. "Goodbye, Sarah."

"Wait!" Sarah suddenly yelled. "You then can't just return and then say goodbye again!" She hammered on the closed door. "Let me in!"

The door opened again. The Doctor grinned and Sarah entered the blue box once more...


	2. A Grey City

It was a very large hall. From the outside, it would have looked like any old meeting at the relatively new community centre – only up six years. The community centre wasn't the first choice for location – its entire west side was made of glass – but it was better than hiding in some suspicious lair.

Behind the three-storey-high window, a crowd of people were gathering. Two, if not three hundred, young men and women gathered, chatting excitedly to one another. The chatter faded away as a man, in his mid-twenties or thereabouts, approached the front of the room and the microphone.

"Welcome, my friends," he told them warmly. "You should all know why you are here."

The crowd mumbled something that vaguely sounded like agreement, so the young man went on.

"Tomorrow, this New World ends. The invaders will be driven out. All over Melbourne, and several other cities across the country, we will revolt. We will be free."

"We will be free!" the crowd chanted in agreement.

At that moment, the doors were thrust open and in stomped a troop of angry soldiers. None of the rebels had time to make a noise before the soldiers started shooting. Screaming ensued, but it soon died away and all of the previously buzzing crowd lay motionless on the floor. The soldiers, consciences unmoved, stomped away and slammed the door behind them.

One of the crowd, a girl in her late teens, lifted her head slightly. Upon confirming that the soldiers were indeed gone, she slowly pulled herself up and looked at her fellow crowd members.

"Natalie?" she whispered, slowly approaching a girl in the corner. The poor girl, Natalie, was obviously not alive, as her top was soaked in blood and she was curled in a corner.

The girl in her late teens went up to the stage to check on the man there. "Aaron!" she exclaimed, shaking him. "Aaron! They're... gone..."

"Atlanta..." Aaron grunted in pain before dying himself.

The girl, Atlanta, turned around. They couldn't all be dead... one of them had to be alive... one of them...

But they weren't. _She_ was the one who was alive. The only one.

* * *

Eighty-two years later, the world was a blank, bleak place. Grey roads met grey footpaths, which met grey buildings, which in turn met grey skies. The once bustling epicentre that had been Melbourne, population 3,100,000 was now reduced to a mere ten thousand, and the abandoned previously-busy streets now paid homage to the scarce humans, clad in grey, and the occasional sign, although most had long been painted over with grey to match the rest of the city. No animal life could be seen or heard very often, but if you waited patiently enough, a grey pigeon might just fly past and steal a remote, almost non-existent scrap of food. 

Seemingly to break up the monotony of this world which could have been filmed in black and white and looked nearly the same, a large blue box was thrown up out of nowhere. With no people to turn and look, the two occupants, dressed similarly to break up the grey, stepped out. These were the Doctor and Sarah.

"It's grey," Sarah summarised. "Look, on my first journey after two years I expected something a bit better."

"I can see it's grey," the Doctor replied to the first sentence, after locking the TARDIS. "Don't get into any mischief, K-9!"

"Where are we?"

"I don't know. Maybe we can try a newspaper stand."

In this bleak, miserable, apparently human less world, the Doctor and Sarah took a bit of a walk around a large building to find a river. A miniature island of rubbish floated along it, pausing to hit a long-abandoned boat, then continuing.

"I don't like this place," Sarah complained.

"In our first meeting in eight years I didn't expect you to be your usual complaining self," the Doctor told her almost coldly.

"Well, maybe you'd taken me to a nicer place!" Sarah retorted angrily.

"It could be worse. It could be cold." The Doctor started to descend the steps towards the river, while Sarah opted to stay on the bridge above.

Sarah stared at the abandoned boat, which was half-filled with water, for several minutes. The Doctor seemed intent on trying to poke it with a stick.

"Yarra Boat Tours," Sarah read out from the side of the boat when the quiet finally got to her. "Doctor, is there a city called Yarra on Earth?"

"I don't know," the Doctor replied. "Could be. I know of a city with a Yarra River, though."

Sarah looked around. "Hardly a city. There's no one here."

The Doctor nodded. "I wonder if it's a mission."

"A mission?"

"You know, like when we landed on Karn. And Skaro."

Sarah nodded. "Not those again. The Time Lords always chose desolate planets." She paused. "Only they weren't, of course. Quite the opposite."

The Doctor nodded, and started to climb up the stairs. "Let's look for signs of life, eh?"

"Yes," Sarah sided. "It's starting to make me shiver... and not because of the temperature. It's quite nice, really. For a grey world."

Rounding yet another corner, the Doctor and Sarah found a newspaper stand. The paper was the most grey shade of yellow Sarah would have thought possible, and as the Doctor reached for a paper to find the date, it crumbled between his fingers.

"I don't think it's the date those papers say it is," the Doctor decided. "It's certainly not 2076." Looking inside the stall, he confirmed it with, "these cobwebs have been here years. Decades, maybe."

Sarah nodded. "There's no one we can help, Doctor. There's no one here."

"There's bound to be someone here," the Doctor argued. "Time Lords don't just send people to planets because they think it's funny."

Sarah secretly thought that it was the TARDIS and not the Time Lords, but she thought that if she told the Doctor he'd start arguing with her. But whatever it was about this futuristic Earth, she didn't like it.


	3. A Pathetic Guard

Not far away, a clearly terrified man peered cautiously around the corner to spot the two intruders. Dressed in the traditional grey of the time, he fumbled in his pocket for a moment before retrieving a small device that appeared to be a mobile phone.

"Bo... boss," he stuttered into the device. "Intr... uders... not far from the Yarra."

There was a crackly pause on the phone, as the towers which transmitted phone calls had mostly fallen into disrepair. However, a voice grated back, nearly causing the unfortunate man to jump.

"Who are they?"

"I, uh, don't know, sir... no idea..."

"Describe them!"

"They are... man, a woman, about twenty years apart in age... the man has curly hair – dark, curly hair – the woman, she has, uh, dark hair too, just past her, uh... shoulders..."

"Fool! Where are they?"

The man hesitated briefly. "Central sector... uh, near the river... next to a newspaper stall – abandoned newspaper stall, of course..." The man, apparently convinced this was a good enough answer, waited for a voice to come back.

"Bring them to me!"

"Sir... how can I?"

"You have a Death Ray, you imbecile! Threaten them! Kill one, if necessary... I only need one for questioning."

"Whi... which?"

"Either! It doesn't matter! The man, if you insist..."

"Ri... right you are, uh, sir," the man whispered, putting his phone away and retrieving from his pocket a small white stick, rather resembling the black-and-white "magic wand" of the twentieth century. This was his Death Ray. It was, despite appearances, one of the most terrifying weapons invented by mankind. Invented in the war of the early 21st century, they had quickly been utilised for the purposes of those who eventually won. But history was not a lesson to dwell on now.

The man stumbled around the corner when he was sure that the victims' backs were turned. He didn't like killing people. Never had. He hoped he wouldn't have to.

Still terrified, the man accidentally tripped over his own foot, alerting the Doctor and Sarah to his presence. The Doctor whirled around and grinned.

"So there is life on Earth!" he exclaimed triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you so, Sarah?"

Sarah pulled a face. She didn't especially like being proved wrong. Who does?

The man, for his part, was now more terrified than ever. "Please," he stuttered, "you must... uh, come with me. Questioning... to ask... questions... to you..."

"That's not fair," the Doctor insisted. "Wherever I go, I'm always the one who gets asked the questions. I want a turn!"

"Sir, you must listen to me! I have orders..."

"What orders?"

"He... the Admini... person... he only needs only you of one! One of you! Just... come on!"

"Fine kidnapper you are," Sarah remarked. "You can't even get your words around the right way."

"I know, miss... um, I mean... hurry up! Death Ray! I have a... Ray Death... of Death... um, Death Ray..." the man tried to brandish his Death Ray threateningly, but he dropped it in sheer panic.

"Sarah was right, you know," the Doctor told him conversationally. "You're a hopeless guard. You just dropped your Death Ray."

The man hesitated, but pointed his Death Ray straight at the Doctor. "I... need not... um... my boss said... I only need the girl..."

"Why only Sarah?" the Doctor asked. "Why not both of us? We're much better company together."

"Warned you," the man stuttered, pressing the button on the Death Ray. Unfortunately for him, in his panic he held it the wrong way, and accidentally killed himself.

Sarah, of course, was flabbergasted. "Why didn't you stop him?" she spluttered. "He might have been a pathetic guard, but that's no reason..."

"You've seen worse things than that," the Doctor protested.

"Not for two years," Sarah replied testily. "I really, really don't like this place."

"But now we're involved. You just saw a man kill himself. Men don't kill themselves for no reason, Sarah – it takes a lot of courage. Or a lot of fear."

"I want to go home," she repeated, before turning away from the dead man's body. "And yes, I know I just came... I forgot how horrible this can be. Really, truly horrible..."

The Doctor sighed. "All right, Sarah. You can wait in the TARDIS."

"Thank you."

"And after I'm done looking around, I'll take you back to Earth."

Sarah looked at him with a mixture of shock and horror. "Look around? You already have! There's no point in -"

"There's every point, Sarah," the Doctor interrupted. "But most of all, they've given me a mission. I must obey."

Sarah nodded reluctantly. "All right," she conceded, "but I'm going back to the TARDIS, anyway."

"You do that, Sarah."

Sarah nodded and, taking the TARDIS key, set off as fast as she could manage to the TARDIS.

* * *

A man watched this unfold on what appeared to be a large screen in his office. Infuriated by this development, his arm sent everything on his desk flying. 

"Incompetent fool!" the man screamed. His assistant, a relatively attractive blonde woman, ran into the room.

"Can't you keep anything on your desk?" she asked politely. Clad in the traditional grey, though paler than most people's outfits, she knelt and started to gather the pens and pencils that had fallen to the floor.

"You should work on keeping your temper, sir," she suggested, politely again.

"I am the Administrator of Melbourne!" the man screamed. "I can lose my temper now and again if I feel like it."

"Maybe, sir, but you don't lose it "now and again", you lose it every two minutes." The assistant stood up, having finished gathering all that fell onto the floor.

The Administrator glared at his ever-polite assistant. "You shouldn't get ahead of yourself, my dear."

"No, sir," the assistant nodded. "I am sorry."

The Administrator nodded. "Wise words. Now GO!"

The instant his assistant obeyed, the Administrator retrieved what looked like a ninety-year-old mobile phone from his pocket.

"Bring me the girl," he hissed into the mobile. "I have some questions to ask her."


	4. Atlanta

The Doctor wandered through the abandoned city. He decided it was a simplistic city to wander through, and consequently of _course_ he meant to wander into a sealed-off area with a large warehouse in it.

"Hello?" he called into the warehouse, quietly. Walking a little further inside, he noticed people. In boxes. Clear boxes.

Why were people in clear boxes?

Wandering to the nearest one, the Doctor saw a girl in her late teens, with brown hair and a head tilted to the right.

"Suspended animation!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Why would she be in suspended animation?" The Doctor wandered over to a cupboard for some resuscitation equipment, which he located and brought to the girl. With a sharp jolt she opened her eyes, but relaxed again.

"Only you," she grinned sheepishly. "I don't know who I was expecting."

"Do you know who I am?" the Doctor asked, surprised.

"Don't be stupid, Doctor, of course. Where's Sarah? I didn't get to meet her last time."

The Doctor made a strange face. "I don't know who you are," he confessed.

"How can you not know who I am? You saved my life!"

"Probably, but that doesn't mean I know you."

The girl stared at the Doctor. "I'm Atlanta, Doctor. Does that mean anything to you?"

"No."

Atlanta climbed out of her box shakily. "You're the most imbecilic man..."

"Oi! Firstly, that's not very nice. Secondly, I'm not a..."

"Man? Yeah, I forgot. You're still an imbecilic Time Lord." Atlanta tested her feet on the ground gingerly, then decided it was safe enough and promptly fell over. "Stupid floor... too hard..."

The Doctor tried to hold Atlanta up as she regained her balance. "Atlanta," he asked, "has it occurred to you that I mightn't have met you yet?"

"No," she replied. "Makes sense, though. What about K-9, how's he?"

"Fine. Both K-9 and Sarah are fine. In the TARDIS."

Atlanta nodded. "You didn't do a very good job of saving the Earth, you know," she told him.

"What? I do an excellent job at saving the -"

"Well, as soon as you left, the Americans took over again."

"I haven't done that yet," the Doctor protested, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"That makes sense too," Atlanta answered. "Can we go out and get some food? I'm really, really hungry."

"What, outside?"

"Where else?"

"Well, you're not going to have much luck outside. The only living thing Sarah and I saw killed himself."

"But I'm hungry."

"Well, I can take you to the TARDIS, I suppose. If you've already seen it. There's food there. And Sarah can meet you. And K-9."

Atlanta nodded.

* * *

Atlanta and the Doctor arrived in the control room of the TARDIS to find K-9.

"Hello, K-9," Atlanta greeted him. "How are you?"

"Intruder," K-9's metallic voice told her warningly.

"It's all right, K-9," the Doctor grinned, "she's with me. Her name's Atlanta. Where's Sarah?"

"Insufficient data, Master."

"But when I asked you to locate Leela you could, you stupid robot dog!"

"Negative, Master. That was not me, that was K-9, mark one."

"Who's Leela?" Atlanta interjected, but the Doctor and K-9 both ignored her.

"Now, listen to me, K-9. Is Sarah in the TARDIS?"

"Negative."

"Was she ever in the TARDIS?"

"Affirmative."

"When?"

"When we landed, Master."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Has Sarah come into the TARDIS after we left to explore?"

"Negative."

"Doesn't that girl ever listen?" the Doctor demanded to no one in particular.

"Affirmative."

"Shut up, K-9."

"What are you going to do?" Atlanta asked, confused. "Will you get K-9 to track her down?"

The Doctor paused. "I've had a brilliant idea. K-9 and I are going to track Sarah down!"

"That's what I said!" Atlanta protested. "You're as bad as you were in 2011."

"You mean will be in 2011."

Atlanta shrugged. "Fine. Will be." She paused. "Are you actually planning on going outside?"

* * *

"I swear I'm not a useful person to question!" Sarah protested to the two buffoons who were busily dragging her away through the city streets. "I only just got here!"

"Look, it's not our business, miss," one of the buffoons told her. "We're just obeying orders."

"But surely the person who gave the orders knows better!" Upon attracting no response, Sarah exclaimed, "you're pulling my hair!"

"Will you be quiet, miss?" the other buffoon asked politely. "You're being annoying."

As she was being dragged backwards several hundred metres, Sarah didn't feel this was a very suitable remark, so she said as much.

"We do have Death Rays, miss. We'd prefer not to have to use them," the first buffoon told her.

"Well you can't question me if you use them anyway."

"Pfft," the first buffoon sighed. "They're too brainy in New America. We'll have to tell the Administrator."

"_New America?_"

"Scratch that. They're not very bright in New America at all," the second laughed.

"Where's New America?" Sarah asked impatiently.

"You know France, right?" the second buffoon asked.

"Yes."

"Go north east."

"It's south west, you dunderhead," the first buffoon told his friend.

"Is it?"

"Yes."

"I'm sure it was north..."

"Nah, it was south! And west!"

"NORTH EAST!"

Sarah groaned. "It didn't happen to used to be called England, did it?"

"Yeah!" the first buffoon grinned. "It was south west, wasn't it?"

"No, it was north east," the second argued.

"It was north west!" Sarah yelled at them.

"Really? I KNEW IT!"

"Mate, you said south west."

"North, south... what's the difference?"

"Uh, DUH, mate. It's much more different than east and west."

"No it isn't! If you start going north and keep going in that direction past the North Pole, you'll end up going south! But if you go west, YOU'RE STUCK GOING WEST!"

"Yeah, but if you decide to fly the whole way around the Earth north to south you'll freeze. By going east or west you live."

"That doesn't have anything to do with it!"

"It doesn't?"

"No!"

"Oh..."

"This is a very intellectually stimulating conversation," Sarah told the buffoons sarcastically.

"Um... whatever that means... thanks, miss!"


	5. ReEducation

Sarah was fuming by the time she was finally dragged into an important-looking office four storeys off the ground. As it turned out, being dragged backwards up eight flights of stairs was quite painful. Of course, it also hadn't helped that the two buffoons dragging her then proceeded to argue over where Ireland was in relation to their "New America". Despite her protests that it was west, the two had decided that she had imparted too many gems of wisdom for the day and compromised between north and south and decided that Ireland floated over New America.

All in all, she wasn't in the best of moods when finally taken to the Administrator.

"Good afternoon, my dear," he greeted her. "Did Bob and Dylan ruffle your feathers a bit?"

"You could say that," Sarah told him sullenly.

"I must apologise," the Administrator smiled. "In such a small city, there aren't as many suitable candidates for a police force as I'd like."

"So you compensate by hiring unsuitable candidates," Sarah replied.

The Administrator controlled his temper with difficulty. "Now, my dear, I'm afraid you're in breach of a rather important law."

"Which law's that?" Sarah asked angrily.

"Conformity," the Administrator answered promptly. "Luckily for you, the death penalty was done away with in the 2030s."

"Lucky me."

"Instead, you have earned yourself a ten-minute re-education session."

"And after the ten minutes I'll be free to leave?"

"Of course. I'm not going to keep you here longer than necessary."

Sarah smiled. "All right. Before I go, then, I'd like to ask some questions."

The Administrator kept smiling, but asked, "why?"

Sarah blinked. "I'm a journalist," she answered. "I'm used to asking questions."

The Administrator nodded. "Very well. You may ask."

"Excellent. Now, how did this all start?"

"I'm afraid I don't understand the question."

"Well, why is the city abandoned?" she asked. "Why does everyone have to wear grey?"

The Administrator didn't like these questions very much. "Question time is over!" he yelled.

"But you didn't answer -"

"It is over!" the Administrator insisted. "Go now!"

A bewildered Sarah went and wondered if re-education would tell her what she wanted to know.

* * *

Atlanta watched dispassionately as the Doctor practised his pebble-skipping – and you wouldn't have thought there'd be many pebbles in a city, abandoned or not, to practise with. K-9 looked about as dispassionate as Atlanta, but considering he was a robot dog, it was much easier for him.

"Oh, K-9!" the Doctor complained as K-9's sudden whirring made the Doctor drop his pebble. "That was my last pebble!"

"Apologies, Master," K-9 stated, "but I detect the Mistress. She is moving towards us, Master."

Atlanta turned around curiously, where she noticed a woman running as fast as she could manage. Closer and hurried analysis on Atlanta's part didn't help at all, but she could guess the woman's identity anyway because K-9 had pretty much given it away.

"Sarah!" Atlanta yelled. "Over here!" Sarah clearly hesitated. Well, of course. Any sane person would. "I'm Atlanta!" Atlanta continued to yell. "The Doctor's over here too, down there!" Atlanta gestured towards the river.

Sarah continued to keep her distance. She'd let her stupid curiosity get ahead of common sense once again, and let herself be dragged to re-education – which hadn't told her anything except that asking questions was a serious crime, too. At any rate, she wasn't suddenly going to go and chat with a strange teenage girl.

"Doctor!" Sarah called out coarsely, and much quieter than she would have liked. Her voice betrayed a sense of panic that cancelled the Doctor's quest to find more pebbles and made him pay attention. "Are you really there?"

"Of course I am," the Doctor's voice came back. When Sarah saw the familiar man reappear, climbing the stairs towards higher ground, she felt a lot more relieved. She walked past Atlanta quickly, instead approaching the highly concerned Doctor.

"Are you all right?" he asked gently. Sarah's hesitant smile couldn't hide her fear. Sarah gave up trying to and gestured at her grey outfit.

"They re-educated me," Sarah whimpered. "Whoever thought of that name deserves a new dictionary. And a painful death." Sarah paused for a moment before continuing. "It was the longest ten minutes of my life. They're no more than savages with advanced weaponry."

Much to his own dismay, the Doctor began to wonder how Leela would feel about being compared to such monsters. He brushed the thought aside and asked Sarah gently, "did they hurt you?"

Sarah nodded tearfully. "I thought I wouldn't last the ten minutes," she confessed sadly.

The Doctor looked in concern at his one-time best friend. "Can I see?" he inquired as gently as he could manage. Sarah nodded and offered her right arm. Once the grey sleeve had been rolled up, it was plainly obvious that she had been burned.

"Good grief, Sarah," the Doctor sympathised. "What made them do all this?"

"Not conforming," Sarah wailed. "They're absolute monsters. Worse than the Sontarans."

"I hope you realise, Sarah, that not all the Americans could possibly act like this."

Sarah nodded angrily. "Of course! If they could..."

Atlanta, having been completely ignored by both the Doctor and Sarah, took them both by surprise when she spoke up in a slightly harder voice. Slightly.

"Don't you see what you have to do?" Atlanta asked the Doctor, she being as horrified by Sarah's burns as he was. "You have to defeat the Americans the second time round."

Infuriated as he was with the cruelty of these Americans, the Doctor wasn't quite prepared to be exiled to Earth again. "But that would break the most important rule on Gallifrey!" the Doctor insisted sadly. "I can't do that."

Now it was Atlanta's turn to be infuriated. "Do you know how many hundreds of millions of people have suffered Sarah's fate, Doctor?" Atlanta asked him. "Nearly a billion. One in six people felt the same pain. I don't know what kind of warped law they have on Gallifrey, but surely those poor souls are worth more than the benefits of obeying a trumped-up law!"

Inwardly, the Doctor agreed with absolutely everything Atlanta said, and since it seemed foolish to argue with her when he agreed, the Doctor gave in.

"For a human," the Doctor told her, "you have a very unbiased view of the world." Upon finishing that remark, he turned to K-9. "Come on, K-9."

"What about me?" Sarah asked, her voice still coarse.

"If I took you with me, you'd be resistant to every change I made." At Sarah's confused expression, he added, "you'd keep the burns. Don't worry, Sarah. Atlanta won't hurt you."

"But..." Sarah's voice trailed away slightly. "You won't forget me again, will you?"

"I give you my word," the Doctor promised. Since Sarah appeared adamant that that wasn't enough, he fumbled around in his pockets for a small white packet, and gave it to Sarah. "Now I have to come back," he told her, solemnly. "You have my jelly babies."


	6. Meddling in Time

In 2011, the girl named Atlanta stumbled over her own feet walking the short distance to her house. The late August night's air was bitterly cold, but Atlanta hadn't remembered to retrieve her no doubt bloodstained jacket from the community centre, and she refused to go back. Not to that place of death. Never again.

Atlanta quietly let herself into her home. There was no one to tell about her being home. Her parents were long gone. Her sister, Natalie... even her old male cat had abandoned her, deciding that he might as well fend for himself in the suburban area. Atlanta hadn't minded at the time, so much...

But now she'd lost Natalie, her sweet, good-tempered sixteen-year-old little sister...

Even more quietly, Atlanta walked towards the kitchen, not bothering to turn on any lights even though it neared ten at night. Her breathing became ragged as she opened a rather dirty drawer. She located a reasonably sharp knife, and gripped in her left hand. Why suffer any more? She would die, as her friends had died. Better to die of her own accord than at the hands of idiotic American soldiers.

As soon as she had made this decision, Atlanta dropped the knife. Its loud clatter on the floor changed Atlanta's mind completely. There was nothing better about giving up!

Atlanta trembled as she collected the knife and placed it gently back in the drawer. Closing the drawer, Atlanta wondered what she could do. Everyone was dead. Natalie. Aaron. Everyone she'd ever known. Seemingly, everyone she hadn't ever known. Cunning move of those disgusting Americans. She was driving herself insane.

Atlanta dragged herself outside into the freezing cold air through the back door. She fell in a heap pathetically on the grass. It was wet from the rain throughout the day, and the mist that currently enveloped the city.

Atlanta couldn't be bothered to get up. Staring dazedly at the stars above her head, she wondered if she would, perhaps, freeze to death. In a sickening fashion, it was a comforting thought, one which carried Atlanta right off to sleep.

* * *

As it grew near to six in the morning, an unknowing Atlanta grew colder and colder. Contrary to what her shocked, depressed state the night before had suggested, Atlanta hadn't really intended to kill herself, but it was a goal she was close to achieving as the temperatures plummeted towards 0 degrees.

Luckily for her, a loud whirring noise stirred her. Atlanta blinked and tried to get her eyes into focus. When she did, she found herself staring into the eyes of a stranger. A certain curly-haired, scarf-wearing, seven-hundred-and-fifty-seven-year-old stranger (though Atlanta wasn't aware of the last part yet).

"Who are you?" she demanded accusingly. "Are you here to take me away?"

"I'm called the Doctor," the Doctor grinned, "and as a Doctor, I was wondering what you were doing lying in the grass, nearly in the dark, at such cold temperatures."

"You're English," Atlanta blurted out, before she could stop herself. "What are you doing in Australia?"

The Doctor was quite indignant. "Following your orders, as a matter of fact!" he told her.

"My orders?" Atlanta asked. "I... I've never seen you before."

The Doctor grinned. He much preferred it this way than when Atlanta had been the one with the knowledge of him. "I've seen you, you know," the Doctor told her.

"Probably," Atlanta waved a hand. "I have the unfortunate habit of turning up wherever I'm in danger of being arrested."

"Me too!" the Doctor grinned.

Atlanta pulled a bemused face. "My name's Atlanta, by the way," she told him.

"I know," the Doctor told her.

"You can't know," Atlanta protested, "I hadn't told you yet."

"I can travel through Time," the Doctor told her. "I bumped into your future self in... uh, the 2090s. I think."

Atlanta stared at him in disbelief. "Do I really live past my hundredth birthday?" she asked curiously. The Doctor grinned.

"I don't know," he confessed, "and even if I did, I shouldn't tell you."

"I doubt I'll live that long," Atlanta told him. "I barely lived past last night."

"I know," the Doctor grinned.

"I don't see what you're grinning about," Atlanta told him grumpily. "Everyone I know died. My friends. My sister. Aaron."

The Doctor nodded knowingly. "I've seen death as well," he told her. "I can never really get past the feeling that somehow, I failed. Except, of course, when the evil genius who's usually spent the whole trip trying to kill me dies."

Atlanta tensed up. "You speak lightly of death!" she screamed at him, reminding the Doctor horribly of Leela. Why had he been so reminded of Leela recently? He hadn't thought about her much since leaving her on Gallifrey six years ago.

The Doctor's musings were interrupted by Atlanta. "If you saw what happened, you wouldn't speak lightly," she told him.

"Maybe not," the Doctor agreed. "But how are you?"

"Fine," Atlanta waved him away irritably. "I wish I wasn't. I wouldn't feel so guilty, then."

"You can't single-handedly stop a massacre, Atlanta."

"I could try," Atlanta replied fiercely.

"You'd just have been gunned down as well. No point in needless death – that's why it's needless, you see?"

Atlanta bounded up fiercely. "My sister has died!" she screamed.

"Yes, I know. You told me already," the Doctor pointed out, a remark to which he earned a slap. The Doctor rubbed the side of his jaw crossly. "You just slapped my face," he told her icily.

"I know that!" Atlanta yelled. "Well, why are you here, anyway?" Glancing around the backyard, Atlanta noticed a large 1950s-style blue police box near her old Dad's shed. "And how did that get there?" she added, asking no one in particular.

"I brought it," the Doctor grinned.

"I don't even know who you are!" Atlanta snapped icily.

"Now, really. I know your sister died last night, but that's no excuse to be rude."

"Well, what is it?" Atlanta asked.

"It's a TARDIS," the Doctor explained unhelpfully. Luckily for Atlanta, the Doctor continued with some information that was a bit more useful. "It's my preferred mode of transport. Takes me anywhere in the Universe I'd like." The Doctor coughed. "Well, most of the time. And it can travel in Time, as well."

Atlanta made a face. "It's a blue shed, Doctor."

The Doctor pulled a face in return. "That's my TARDIS you're talking about!"

"I'm aware of that. And it's a blue shed."

"No it isn't!" the Doctor insisted rather protectively. "I'll show you." He opened the TARDIS door for Atlanta. Looking inside suspiciously, she confirmed with disappointment that the Doctor was right. Not so disappointingly, though, Atlanta saw a robot dog. K-9, in fact.

"Hello, doggy," Atlanta grinned at the metallic dog with K-9 printed on its side. Forgetting that she was supposed to be mad at the Doctor, she stepped into the TARDIS.

"Greetings, Young Mistress," K-9 told her, which took Atlanta by surprise.

"No no no," Atlanta corrected him hastily, "my name's Atlanta."

"Correct, Young Mistress."

Atlanta sighed. "So what's your name, eh?"

"I am K-9, mark two."

Glancing at the letters "K-9" printed boldly on K-9's side, Atlanta commented, "how original."

"I do not understand, Young Mistress."

"Now now now," the Doctor attempted to wheel Atlanta out of the TARDIS. "That's quite enough excitement for one day."

"But – I -" Atlanta protests were not obeyed as she was basically pushed out of the TARDIS, the Doctor following. "Fine," Atlanta sulked. "I believe that's a silly spaceship now. But why are you here?"

"I told you. Obeying your orders."

Atlanta sighed. "All right," she agreed. "What were my orders?"

"To defeat the Americans," the Doctor told her simply. To his surprise, Atlanta laughed.

"You, on your own?" she snickered.

"Not on my own!" the Doctor insisted irritably. "I have K-9. And I rather hoped I'd have you, too."

"What, join in on a suicide mission with a strange man with a spaceship and his robot dog?"

"Yes."

Atlanta grinned. "All right. Beats sitting around all day."


	7. The Public Transport System

The first place Atlanta led the Doctor to, excluding inside, was the local train station. Faced with the challenge of buying two metcards, the Doctor became apparently fascinated by the system and asked Atlanta to explain it to him.

"There are three zones, Doctor," she explained patiently. "If you plan to stay within your zone, you buy a ticket for just that zone. If you need to go through another zone, or to another zone, you buy a ticket for those two zones. And if you need to go through or to all three zones, you buy the ticket for all three zones."

"How do you know which zone you're in?"

"Well, there are usually large signs everywhere," Atlanta explained. "We're in zone one, and the city's also in zone one, so we buy a zone one ticket. Then you choose the length of time before the ticket expires." She paused. "How long do we want?"

The Doctor analysed his options. "No twenty-yearly?"

"No. You can get a half-yearly if you fill out a form, though."

The Doctor shrugged and pressed the 'Daily' button. "What's this final step?"

"Concession or Full Fare. Obviously, we're Full Fare."

"I'm older than 65!" the Doctor protested.

Atlanta stared at him. "You can't be," she told him. "You don't look older than 47 or so."

"Thank you. I'm actually 757." Triumphantly, he pressed the 'Concession' button on the machine. "Uhm... it says it needs three dollars and ten cents."

Atlanta handed over the money and the Doctor got his ticket. Then Atlanta got hers, and the two stepped out to wait for the train. It came soon enough, and the Doctor and Atlanta climbed aboard.

"You're very lucky it's six in the morning," Atlanta told the Doctor. "If it were any later than eight, there'd be soldiers swarming the train."

"Very lucky indeed, then," the Doctor decided.

Unfortunately, it might not have been swarming with soldiers, but there were a few lurking about, and they happened to notice the Doctor and Atlanta, because they were the only two people in that particular carriage.

"I don't think this is my good day," the Doctor told Atlanta quietly as a group of American soldiers surrounded the two.

"What are you two doing here?" one demanded.

"Aren't we allowed to take public transport?" the Doctor asked the soldier. "I thought that was why it was there, so normal residents could go wherever they wanted in the city while reducing pollution."

"Whatever," the soldier summarised.

"Typical American," Atlanta remarked snidely, and her reward was to have a large gun pointed at her head. Atlanta displayed no outward signs of panic that most assistants would have done, and instead glared reproachfully at the soldier. "All Americans say 'whatever'," she argued in vain. "It's not meant to be snide, it's just an observation."

"Who are you?" the American behind the gun demanded.

Atlanta sighed. "Atlanta Johnston," she admitted reluctantly. "Yes, I was part of a resistance movement. And yes, you buffoons tried to shoot me last night. And furthermore, yes, I am alive."

Another American soldier grabbed her hair and pulled her upwards, towards the door.

"Oi!" the Doctor yelled. "Where are you going with her?"

The American soldier holding Atlanta rolled his eyes. "Take him, too," he instructed. "He could be a nuisance."

* * *

"I knew this was a suicidal mission, Doctor, but suicidal in the first twenty minutes?"

Atlanta and the Doctor had been knocked unconscious once off the train, and driven by car to the large American base right in the heart of Melbourne. Upon awakening, Atlanta discovered that her wrists and ankles were bound securely to what appeared to be a table on an angle, tilting down towards where her feet were. The Doctor was on a similar table next to her, and rather annoyed about the fact that he couldn't escape the steel restraints until he had his sonic screwdriver, but he also couldn't reach his sonic screwdriver until he had escaped the steel restraints! The Doctor had never particularly liked paradoxes. They put him in a bad mood.

"Well, it's not my fault we were arrested," the Doctor retorted. "It was you and your well-placed snide remark that made them all unfriendly."

"They would have killed us anyway!" Atlanta yelled back angrily. "Couldn't you get K-9 here or something to free us?"

The Doctor grinned. Brilliant! Only... he couldn't reach his dog whistle without freeing his hand, and that put him right back in the realm of paradoxes.

"Well, what else could we do?" Atlanta tried to think. "We could always run away when they come to execute us," she suggested. The Doctor was appalled.

"Without a trial or _anything?_" he asked in surprise.

"What did you think this was, democracy? Of course not."

"But don't they hold elections?" he asked, bewildered.

"Only Americans can vote," Atlanta told him, "and I doubt most of them know what's happening further out than Canada or Mexico."

That was encouraging. Not. "Has anyone ever escaped from the Americans?"

"Not escaped as such. But lived, at least."

"How?"

"There was this one girl, Dani. She wasn't really active in our movement, but her brother Toby was. When the Americans took Toby, they took Dani too. Toby never came back. Dani did, but she'd changed."

"Really?" the Doctor pretended to be fascinated.

"Yeah. She started taking a whole lot more interest in the movement. And then she -" Atlanta frowned. "She wasn't at the meeting yesterday! The little... hypnotised..."

The Doctor was interested now. "So we're either to die or be hypnotised."

"You, anyway. I'm to die."

"You're very cheerful."

Before Atlanta could reply, some American soldiers entered the room loudly. Before Atlanta could reply to the Doctor, some of the soldiers began manhandling the Doctor, unfastening the steel restraints before carting him away. Atlanta called after them desperately, but the only response she got was a rude "shut up" from one of the soldiers.


	8. I Topple Evil Dictatorships

"Good morning, Doctor," a male, thick American accent greeted the Doctor as he was pushed into an office.

"Good morning," the Doctor grinned.

"You shouldn't be so casual with me," the American warned. "I administrate Melbourne on behalf of the Almighty American government."

"That's nice," the Doctor said. "I topple evil dictatorships on behalf of the Time Lords. And justice."

"There are no dictatorships on Earth," the American announced triumphantly. "We wiped them out in 2007."

"Along with most of the populations, I presume."

"Small sacrifices, Doctor. Small sacrifices must be made for the greater good." The Doctor began to wonder if the American were brainwashed himself, but he then realised that the man actually believed what he was saying. _Well, good luck to you,_ the Doctor thought. _I don't._

"So what brings you to sunny Australia?" the American man smiled slightly. "Was it to stir trouble?"

The Doctor pretended to be shocked by the accusation. "What, me? Would I stir trouble?"

"I do not know, Doctor. You do not appear to exist."

"Oh. Well, that explains it, then," the Doctor decided aloud. "I don't suppose I would exist in this time. I haven't been here before."

The American man raised an eyebrow. "You can travel through time?" he asked sceptically. The Doctor grinned.

"Everyone can travel through time," the Doctor told him. "It's just that not many people on this planet have the right equipment, and even if they did, they wouldn't know how to use it."

"You're a lunatic," the American told the Doctor.

"Really?" the Doctor asked with interest. "I always preferred the term genius."

The American located what appeared to be a walkie-talkie, and he started to talk into it. "Take the Doctor to re-education," he snapped sharply, for all intents and purposes unaware that the Doctor could understand every word. Given that he'd just seen what had happened to Sarah in re-education an hour ago, what he did should have been expected.

"No!" the Doctor cried, finding an umbrella and smashing it over the American man's head. Despite the fact that it was an umbrella, the American man was knocked out cold. Maybe the Time Lord was particularly strong. The American soldiers, of course, decided to burst into the office at that time and take the Doctor away.

* * *

The Doctor came to in a large, cube-shaped room. He found himself strapped to one of those chairs that can spin around. Childish as it was, the Doctor decided to spin around on it.

Every wall was exactly the same. White, with a blue panel covering most of the wall. The ceiling was also white, and the carpet the same shade of blue as on the panels. He suppose one of the four walls must have a hidden door of some kind, or else be a door, but he couldn't for the life of him – in fact, for the thirteen lives of him – tell which. He also wondered how this strange hollow cube constituted a re-education. Maybe he needed a new dictionary.

At that instant, a low buzzing filled the room. It was so low, that at first the Doctor didn't notice it, until it became louder. Just as the buzzing started to get annoying, the large blue panels started to flash slowly. The Doctor realised he didn't need a new dictionary after all. This room was going to try and hypnotise him into believing in the American Empire and all that gobbledegook!

The Doctor resisted the urge to laugh. _Him?_ The room was going to try and hypnotise _him?_ He was a Time Lord. He could resist any human device. Well, most human devices. Well, not many human devices, actually, but he could certainly resist this one. Though, he did think he'd better put his wonderful acting skills to the test and pretend he was brainwashed. Otherwise, those Americans might make him spend the whole day there, something which would not only be exceedingly irritating but rather bad for his chances of saving Atlanta's life. If Atlanta was right, of course, which he feared she was because she was the one who actually lived in the time, not him, and therefore it was far more likely that she knew more about the time than him.

Suddenly, the blinking lights started to fade, followed soon after by the buzzing noise. Behind him, he heard the wall open. Swinging his chair around, he saw a solitary American soldier stepping away from what appeared to be a huge gateway to a waiting room. _So that's which wall it was,_ he thought with satisfaction. Naturally the soldier was armed, but he, for once, did not seem intent on waving his gun around like a lunatic.

"Are you okay, sir?" he asked politely.

Remembering he was supposed to have been brainwashed, the Doctor let his head loll around. "I feel groggy," he said in a distinctly slurred voice.

"Don't worry, sir. That's a natural reaction." The soldier set to work removing the binding steel over the Doctor's wrists.

"Thank you," the Doctor muttered indistinctly, standing up shakily. The he decided to try something clever. "Where's that girl?" he asked, confusedly.

"Girl, sir?"

"What's her name... short, brown hair, blue eyes... not much older than a teenager, if at all."

The soldier nodded knowingly. "She has been taken for termination," he answered politely. "She was a threat to the Empire."

"Where's the termination chamber?" the Doctor asked, struggling to remember to keep up the slurred voice and shaky standing. Maybe he wasn't such a brilliant actor.

"First floor underground, up near the north east," the soldier replied briskly. "D'you need a lie-down, sir?"

"No no no, I'll be fine." On that note, the Doctor began to run away quickly to save Atlanta.


	9. Temporal Grace

"And how am I going to die?" a blindfolded Atlanta asked the soldiers as they, predictably, dragged her backwards. (I don't think they're very original.) "I think I have a right to know."

The soldiers said nothing and proceeded with their dragging. An infuriated Atlanta decided to kick one of them to demonstrate just how infuriated she was, but this ended up with her losing her balance and a little discomfort as most of her fell down while her arms were held forcefully high.

"All right, all right, I get it," Atlanta complained. "I don't suppose you're going to tell me anyway, of course. I gather it's to be a surprise."

Yet more silence. Atlanta wondered if they had no sense of speech.

The group rounded several more corners before Atlanta felt herself pushed into a chair. Or at least, it felt like a chair, but Atlanta wasn't sure how many things felt like chairs when they weren't. Atlanta felt both arms strapped firmly to both armrests. She cursed herself for not wearing a long-sleeved top that morning. She'd never liked injections, never would like injections, and didn't imagine she'd like them any better while blindfolded and with the prospect of death on the other side. In fact, that pretty much swerved her opinions on the matter in the complete opposite direction.

"Atlanta Johnston," a loud booming voice called out. Atlanta looked around wildly.

"I can't see you," she moaned. The loud, booming voice ignored this protest and continued with its premeditated speech.

"You have been found guilty of causing needless trouble to the American Empire, and conspiring against our almighty President. You will very soon die of a fatal injection. You may repent your sins now, if you wish."

"Do I live?" Atlanta asked.

"No," the booming voice answered in a bemused tone, "but you do go to heaven."

Even with her eyes hidden, Atlanta clearly made a disgusted face. "No," she answered. "I will not."

"Then you are a sinner!"

"Coming from someone who is about to murder a teenager for boarding a train at six in the morning, I think that's a little harsh."

"SILENCE!" the booming voice yelled. Atlanta started trying to squirm her left arm away from the bindings, but given that she couldn't see them, she wasn't quite sure how much progress she was making and so gave up. Atlanta fancied she heard the booming voice – or rather, the man behind the booming voice – pick up a nearby syringe and fill it with a poison. Her face quite visibly tensed and she started shaking her left arm around wildly again, in the hope that would deter her unseen executioner.

Unfortunately for Atlanta, she felt a very painful prick in her right arm. She started to curse herself for not thinking of that, but soon held off as she realised that should she be about to die, she didn't want to spend her last few minutes cursing herself for not preventing it.

"NO!" another booming voice suddenly sounded. There was a dull thud and then a louder thud.

"Who's that?" a panicked Atlanta whimpered. "Save me! Poison..." Atlanta flinched as she felt hands remove her restraints over her arms. "Don't hurt me," she muttered quietly.

"Don't worry," the reassuring voice returned. "You'll be all right. I'm not American. I'm the Doctor. You remember me."

Atlanta nodded as she felt herself picked up. Suddenly she felt air rushing past her face, and she gathered that the Doctor must be running...

...at that point Atlanta blacked out completely, and started to convulse horribly. The Doctor was very uncertain about saving Atlanta now, but if he could get back to the TARDIS in time, she would be protected by Temporal Grace, and that would give K-9 and him some time to find an antidote.

Only trouble was, of course, his resident expert on the city's public transport systems happened to be the person he needed to save. The Doctor ran to the local train station, the dying girl in his arms, but then he realised he had to wait for a train. Two agonised minutes later, one came, and then it went much too slowly for the Doctor's liking. At least the soldiers didn't bother them. Maybe that was because as Atlanta looked very nearly dead and the Doctor was not technically in breach of any law.

The Doctor was very grateful that Atlanta's home was so close to the nearest train station, but feared that twenty minutes was too long for the poison to do its damage. At least, by the time Atlanta and the Doctor finally dashed into the TARDIS, the girl was still alive, which meant that she'd stay alive for the time being.

"Warning, Master," K-9 warned in his mechanic voice. "The Young Mistress is gravely ill."

"Yes, I had rather gathered that, K-9," the Doctor told the robot contemptuously. "Can you work on an antidote to whatever poison she's been injected with?"

"Affirmative, Master."

K-9 probed the girl who had, at least, stopped jerking violently. He then trundled out of view, and the Doctor found her a nice enough guest room inside the TARDIS.

Instead of walking back to the control room, the Doctor stormed to a storage room somewhere. He'd cleverly hidden it from Leela during her time with him, as it contained all the things Leela would have loved to use, like dynamite and bombs. He wasn't quite sure why he had them, and didn't quite remember where he got them, but he at least did know when to use them, and now was the time.

These Americans – and he had to be careful to remember them as _these_ Americans, as he was sure that the average American was quite friendly, not to mention oblivious – weren't like the impersonal alien invaders he'd defeated so many times before. Not the impersonal alien invaders who might inflict a small amount of pain or terror on an assistant, but they were usually more busy with the natives or – more likely – the Doctor. These Americans, they'd frightened Sarah out of her wits when they inflicted those burns on her. They'd very, very – within a millionth the width of a hair if a hair could measure time – nearly murdered Atlanta for no apparent reason other than that she'd called a soldier 'typical'. This meant _war_.

However, he had to take into consideration Atlanta's remarks in the 2090s. Defeating the American army in Australia certainly didn't work – he doubted that would keep them at bay for the month Atlanta had said it did. He had to be more clever than that, which was a good thing because the Doctor, as a Time Lord, was exceedingly clever.

So that was why, while K-9 dutifully worked on an antidote for Atlanta, the Doctor materialised the TARDIS in Washington. Before stepping outside, the Doctor carefully located a gun without any bullets. Using a gun would make him as bad as the Americans. But threatening them with a gun would be perfectly in-character – and after Sarah and Atlanta, the last thing he needed was a _loaded_ gun to threaten them with. He could start actually shooting.


	10. A Cunning Plan

The TARDIS materialised and the Doctor stepped outside. A large sign was in front of the large concrete building the TARDIS was right outside, which read, "Headquarters of the American Empire". The Doctor grinned. Sometimes American stupidity really paid off. They were not, however, stupid enough to leave their headquarters unguarded, and so two guards with, presumably, loaded guns stood outside the large gate.

"Hello," the Doctor grinned. The guards frowned.

"How'd you get that blue box to appear?" one of them asked uncertainly. The other smacked his mate over the head.

"Idiot!" the second guard said. "Only God can appear out of thin air!"

The Doctor smiled innocently. If all the guards were going to think he was God, why did he need a gun?

The first guard, unfortunately, wasn't as sure as the second. "I don't think God looks like that," he told his mate. "We might want to take him in for questioning."

Not more questioning! Couldn't anyone think of something more original than questioning him or killing him?

"Wait a minute!" the Doctor exclaimed. "How do you know what God looks like, eh? Maybe long scarves are all the rage up there... you don't know. You're not dead. And," the Doctor just _had_ to taunt, "if you did die, I wouldn't be so sure you were going to heaven." The Doctor looked smugly at the two confused guards.

"What do we do?" the first guard asked the second – who shrugged.

"What do you want from us?" the second guard asked the Doctor humbly.

"I would like to see the boss of this Empire," the Doctor grinned. "I have some instructions for him."

The two guards were astounded. Apparently this statement fitted in with whatever they believed. Good news for the Doctor, at any rate.

The Doctor was led through various corridors, but at least not backwards. Indeed, the guards appeared to treat him as a revered guest, even stopping to apologise when they trod on his scarf. It was a nice change. Finally, he was led into a grand office. A single man in military uniform sat at the desk.

"Good afternoon," the military man greeted the three. "And who might you be?"

"He is the real thing, sir," one of the guards told the man sitting at the desk, who nodded briskly.

"I can see that," the man remarked icily. "He does not appear to be a hologram."

"No, sir," the same guard argued. "He is... _Him_."

The military man felt like laughing, so he did. "Him? You two are so gullible."

"But he made a blue box appear!" the second guard argued. "And, he stepped out of it!"

The military man stood up and glared at the guard. "What kind of god needs a gun, eh?"

The Doctor's face fell. Last time someone had proved he wasn't a god, he'd nearly died. Looking around, he noticed the two guards glaring accusingly at each other.

"OUT!" the military man yelled at the two guards. The two guards hastily obeyed, leaving just the Doctor and the man.

"So," the military man said accusingly, "was this your idea of a joke?"

"No," the Doctor answered truthfully.

"Well, what do you intend to do here, eh? Steal important confidential plans? Run amok?"

"Save the world," the Doctor answered truthfully again, infuriating the military man even more.

"With what? A gun?"

"Yes, and a telephone."

The military man glared at the Doctor. "Firstly, we're doing a superb job at saving the world. Secondly, _you can't save the world with a gun and a telephone._"

"That's what _you_ think," the Doctor answered pointedly.

The military man laughed to himself. "I'll make you a little bet, Doctor. If you can 'save the world' with a gun and a telephone, I'll spare your life. Otherwise, I won't."

The Doctor hesitated. What kind of deal was that? Saving the world was a matter of opinion. Still, it would at least give him time. "I accept your deal," the Doctor informed him. He then pointed his gun at the man. "Now, pick up the phone."

The military man scowled. "You can't do that."

"You have the telephone, I have the gun," the Doctor replied loftily, not informing the man that the gun wasn't loaded out of pure common sense. "Now pick it up."

The military man continued to scowl, but obeyed.

"Good man. Now, I want you to give an order to your entire army. _Entire_ army. That is, every single member of it."

The military man visibly mouthed insults while pressing the buttons on the phone. Before pressing the last button, a thought crossed his mind. "What happens if I don't?"

"Then I shoot," the Doctor lied. The military man nodded and pressed the last button.

"Hello," he spoke into the phone.

"Now," the Doctor intoned, "I want you to recall your entire army to this building in four days."

The man was appalled, and on the verge of arguing until the Doctor waved the gun at him.

"Hello?" a cool, female voice issued from the phone. "Are you still there, sir?"

"Yes," the man answered. "I want to recall the entire American army here in four days."

A pause. "You can't be serious, sir," the female voice eventually sounded.

"Do I sound like I'm joking?" the man spluttered.

"Very well, sir."

"And," the Doctor interrupted, "I want you to say that order cannot be countermanded. By anyone. Including yourself."

The military man was even more appalled than he had been previously.

"Is there anything else, sir?"

"Uhh... yes," the man reluctantly continued. "This order cannot be countermanded. Not even by me."

The shocked silence on the other end seemed nearly as appalled as the man's. For a silence.

"Very well, sir," the cool female voice replied, and with a sharp click, the conversation ended.

The man was now highly irritated. This man had just ruined his empire! Well, when they arrived in four days, he'd order them on a massacre, just to make the world pay...

The Doctor was grinning. "I believe we had a deal, General. Good bye."

Before the military man even had time to order his arrest or execution or anything, the Doctor had sprinted away.


	11. Down with Dictatorships!

The Doctor continued to sprint into the TARDIS, where he operated the controls to take him four days in the future. In the meantime, K-9 decided this would be a good time to inform the Doctor of his progress.

"Antidote discovered, Master," K-9 informed him, wagging his tail.

"Good boy, K-9!" the Doctor grinned. "Do we have any?"

"Affirmative, Master."

"Excellent!" the Doctor grinned. "Show me, K-9."

K-9 trundled out of view, tail still wagging, to demonstrate where the medicine was. The Doctor retrieved it from the shelf, and located a nice, sterile syringe. He measured out a dosage exactly and then decided to find Atlanta so he could actually inject her with it. After a little bit of backtracking, the Doctor found where he had left her. Atlanta appeared to be very restless, and tried to jerk her arm away as the Doctor injected it.

"Shh," he tried to tell the unconscious – but moving – girl. "This won't hurt a – well, it _might_ hurt a bit, but it's good for you." He pulled the needle out of her arm triumphantly, walking over to K-9. "I want you to monitor Atlanta's condition," he told the robotic dog. "If it doesn't improve normally, fetch me _right away_."

"Affirmative, Master."

The Doctor grinned and shuffled out of view. He wouldn't be long. He was just going to blow up the American army...

* * *

The Doctor laid the various charges around the concrete building. Due to it being concrete, he had to lay as many as he could find to have a hope of blowing it up. Thankfully, wherever he got the stuff had appeared to have a lot of it, and he felt he had more than enough to at least injure most of the army. Grinning triumphantly, he followed the cords back to the TARDIS. Outside the front of it, there was a box with a handle on it. Pushing the handle down would detonate the whole lot, thereby requiring him to jump back into the TARDIS rather quickly before flying bits of concrete flew towards him.

The Doctor took a final triumphant grin at the concrete building before setting off the charges. Jumping backwards to hide inside the TARDIS, he found he jumped headlong into a girl. He hastily stood up and closed the door, sealing them from the explosion, while a weak Atlanta, too weak to get up off the floor, stared at him nonchalantly.

"What happened?" she asked. "I was... going to die. K-9 was no use. He just told me you'd gone."

The Doctor stared sympathetically at the girl. Was she best off knowing?

"You have nothing to worry about," the Doctor grinned. "K-9 and I found an antidote for the poison they injected. I just blew up the Americans then."

Atlanta nodded hastily and the Doctor operated the dematerialisation control. He then proceeded to offer her a hand to get up with, which Atlanta readily accepted.

"Where are we going?" she asked quietly.

"To your home," the Doctor answered. "The Americans won't bother you again."

Atlanta smiled. "Thank you," she responded. "Will anyone?"

"Oh, undoubtedly," the Doctor answered cheerfully. "But you shouldn't worry about it. Worrying about invasions makes people paranoid, and that's the last thing anyone needs when rebuilding a world."

Atlanta half-smiled. "So I suppose everyone will be quite busy for a few years, then."

"Well, humans tend to assume they're always busy. Me, I just saved several billion lives before lunch. Now, _that's_ busy."

"You have a very funny way with words, Doctor."

"So do you, Atlanta."

"Not as funny as you," Atlanta teased.

"Pfft," the Doctor sighed. "I'm glad I don't have to put up with you and Sarah at once. Imagine all the distractions that would cause."

Atlanta poked her tongue out as the TARDIS materialised. Looking outside, she realised it had landed in the right backyard, and hopefully four days after it left it. Atlanta stared out at the open door at the grass and sunny sky. She loved those warm days in late winter and spring where there wasn't a cloud in sight. Today was one of them.

"Goodbye," Atlanta smiled at the Doctor and K-9 before stepping out of the door. She stepped away and looked with delight at the old plum tree in the corner, which had sprung a lot of white blossoms out of nowhere. She heard a wheezing noise behind her and turned around fast enough to see the very last of the blue box fade away. She sighed contentedly and set about finding a nice chair to relax on outside.

* * *

The Doctor, for his part, was grinning like a very triumphant Cheshire Cat. K-9 was as nonchalant as ever.

"I did it, K-9!" the Doctor boasted triumphantly. "Now, let's collect Sarah and take a nice holiday, hm? How does Peladon sound? I'd rather like to see how much of Sarah's lecture Queen Thalira remembered."

The Doctor did not expect to see Atlanta again on his return to 2090s Melbourne.


	12. Return to 2090

When the TARDIS materialised back firmly in the 2090s, the Doctor expected to find a most likely confused but unharmed Sarah sitting next to the river, while the hustle and bustle of city life went on above her.

Instead, he found the world exactly the same as when he left it.

"What are you doing here?" he asked Atlanta in an irritated tone.

Atlanta, for her part, was equally irritated. "You didn't change anything!" she spluttered angrily. "Come late September, the Americans returned and initiated a massacre. That was when I went into suspended animation."

The Doctor wasn't sure what to say. "But I blew them up!" he protested. "I blew all of them up!"

"I wonder what the Brigadier would say to that," Sarah smiled from the corner she'd settled herself down in. Apparently she'd calmed down somewhat since the Doctor's departure, but she was still evidently in pain.

"I can't believe I forgot to check the date," the Doctor chided himself angrily. "When was that?"

"Late August," Atlanta replied grumpily.

"But it was so warm!"

"Some days in late winter are deceiving," Atlanta responded. "They try and trick us into thinking it's spring."

Sarah stared at the two arguing people. "Are you saying," she interjected, "that all that effort came to nothing?"

The Doctor nodded.

Sarah looked disbelievingly at the Doctor. "When we get out of here," she told him, "you are taking that capsule back to Gallifrey and fixing it."

"But I can't do that!" the Doctor protested. "I've meddled in Time! And now I have to do _more_ meddling in Time!"

"_You're the bloody President!_" Sarah spat the words at her friend.

The Doctor sighed. Mentioning random things in moments of weakness never got him anywhere, but he still did it.

"What are you going to do?" Atlanta asked curiously.

The Doctor paused to think. "Those aren't Americans who invaded the second time round," the Doctor told his two assistants thoughtfully.

"Yes they were," Atlanta argued. "Sarah has the burns to prove it."

The Doctor shook his head. "You remember what you saw, Atlanta, that I blew the American building up?"

"Of course I do!" Atlanta exclaimed irritably. "But it didn't work, did it?"

"The entire American army was inside at the time."

Atlanta glared at him disbelievingly. "But it was a very small building."

"Atlanta, you were recovering from poison at the time," the Doctor argued. Sarah stared blankly at both of them, but didn't earn herself any recognition. "Your senses were distorted. You were incredibly weak, too."

Atlanta waited for the Doctor to go on. Irritated at his silence, she exclaimed, "well, go on! I won't know what your point is until you say it!"

"Well, obviously someone else invaded Earth the second time."

"Like who?" it was Sarah who spoke this time.

"Well, a bunch of people very good at imitating an American accent," the Doctor answered. "Or something else."

"I don't like the way you said something," Sarah argued. "What's your point?"

"I think someone decided to take advantage of my horrible blunder and invade Earth."

"What, aliens?"

"Why not?"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "It's _always_ aliens, Doctor. And if not aliens, androids controlled by aliens."

"But it makes sense," Atlanta protested. The Doctor beamed. "And if it were aliens..." it was her turn to beam at the Doctor. "You're every Philosophy class's dream come true!"

This wasn't the remark the Doctor had expected, and it took several moments for him to formulate a response. Not an incredibly good response, but a response nonetheless.

"Uhm, all right then." The Doctor paused to consider what he had to do. What he had done before wasn't true meddling – it had already happened. What he had to do now was real meddling. He had to save Sarah from her horrible ordeal. He had to save the world from being massacred. But most importantly, he had to save the world from alien invasion. If he knew anything about evil aliens, and he did, he didn't think they would be content to masquerade as Americans forever. They might have for eighty odd years, but that would one day change. Be it tomorrow or in ten thousand years, it would change. And to prevent it changing, there was only one simple solution...

"I'm going to go back again," the Doctor grinned. "See you in September, Atlanta. And Sarah, if she disappears, don't worry – it means I've succeeded. With a grin, the Doctor stepped into the TARDIS and it dematerialised again. The standing Atlanta and the seated Sarah exchanged a glance, and Sarah did the thing she thought most reasonable.

"Jelly baby?"

* * *

Atlanta lay around in her backyard lazily, reading a book. Since spring began four weeks ago, the city had enjoyed remarkably good weather – an occurrence Atlanta was being sure not to miss. Her yard was tranquil and peaceful, and while Atlanta was still unnerved by the community centre – any reasonable person would, even if it had been cleaned up – she had mostly gotten over the little disaster of five weeks past.

Suddenly, a loud wheezing, grating noise disturbed the quiet. Atlanta looked up and past her book to notice a large blue box sitting next to her Dad's shed. Out from the box emerged the Doctor, as scarf-wearing and curly-haired as he had been when he saved her life – and the world – five weeks ago.

"Hello," he grinned. "What's the date?"

"September 27th," Atlanta answered in a bemused tone. "What are you doing here?"

"Um, I wasn't so successful in saving the world," the Doctor admitted guiltily.

"What do you mean?" Atlanta asked. "These five weeks have been wonderful. Warm and almost carefree. At least, compared to the last three years."

The Doctor nodded. Maybe telling her about the alien invasion wasn't a good idea yet. "Good book?" he inquired.

Atlanta smiled. "_The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy,_" she answered. "It's brilliantly funny... have you heard of it?"

The Doctor grinned. "Of course! Got a lot of things wrong, but it is just a story, after all."

Atlanta smiled bemusedly. She wasn't completely sure why, but the book reminded her of him a lot. She thought that a lot of the jokes in the book could have been told by the Doctor himself.

"What did you mean, you weren't so successful in saving the world?" Atlanta enquired. "The Americans aren't going to come back, are they?" Her tone was calm, but hurried.

"Oh no, of course not," the Doctor assured her. "Well, technically not."

"Technically not?" That had to be a breach of some grammatical rule.

The Doctor wished he had gotten a better idea from the Atlanta of the future about the alien invasion. He had no idea where to start. "Have you been watching the news while I was away?"

"Yes," Atlanta admitted. It had been a habit she'd gotten herself into.

"Excellent," the Doctor grinned. "What's been happening recently?"


	13. Meteorites Aren't Hollow!

A lot of the news recently had been to do with the complete extermination of the American army and the restoration work. No longer bound by restricting laws, the television stations were once again able to exercise freedom of speech and they felt themselves obligated to report on all the disasters of the last three years. The Doctor was beginning to give up until, when pressed, Atlanta came up with something remarkable (but not to the broadcasters): a meteorite had hit Earth recently. Since no one was injured and it hit an area near the town of Ambukara, in Victoria, Australia, it hadn't been a very newsworthy story.

It was, however, highly newsworthy to the Doctor and he set about trying to start Atlanta's Dad's old car that had been unused for years. As soon as it did, he announced to Atlanta that they were going to Ambukara.

"Why are we driving?" Atlanta asked, reluctant at having to leave her sunny backyard. "Why don't we just take your TARDIS?"

"It's not completely reliable," the Doctor answered. "How long does it take to drive to Ambukara?"

"Two and a half, three hours," Atlanta answered. "You might want to buy petrol before going too far out."

"I rarely carry money."

"I have some," Atlanta sighed. "I don't suppose there's nothing unusual about this meteorite, is there?"

"Of course there is," the Doctor answered. "It's the best lead I've got."

* * *

A starving Atlanta stumbled out of the car as soon as it got to Ambukara.

"You just had to go the scenic route, didn't you?" she chided him, referring to his detour through Geelong.

"Well, I didn't know Geelong was so difficult to get out of!" the Doctor retorted.

Atlanta ignored him and turned to the little milk bar/bakery near the river. "It's been ages since I came here," she sighed happily. "I must have been fourteen." She shivered. "It was never so cold, though."

"We're not here to reminisce, we're here to find the meteorite!" the Doctor snapped. Atlanta shrugged.

"You, maybe," she answered. "I've been stuck in a car for four hours with no food. I want to eat."

The Doctor shrugged and waved her towards the shop. Atlanta glared at him reproachfully and entered to buy some lunch, while the Doctor decided to walk around the beautifully scenic lake in search of the meteorite. The day was certainly much cooler here than elsewhere in the state, but it was a gorgeous area. He certainly hoped he'd be able to defeat the alien invasion – this lake and its surroundings were much more tranquil even than Atlanta's backyard. If he didn't defeat them, he hated to think what this beautifully coloured spot would look like in the grey world of the 2090s. Grey, most probably.

Atlanta stumbled out of the shop with a meat pie and two plastic bottles of Coke. Fumbling while trying to carry everything and look for the Doctor, she inadvertently tripped and fell down a hill. Satisfied that the pie had escaped unscathed, Atlanta decided to eat it and then continue.

* * *

The Doctor had located the meteorite and found it wasn't a meteorite at all. For a start, there wasn't the remotest trace of a crater, merely a pile of broken trees where the thing had crashed through them during its descent. Also, although it looked vaguely like a rock, a bit of tapping and prodding had revealed it to be hollow. Obviously, rocks weren't hollow, but just as obviously, rocks can't contain entire alien armies unless they're big rocks. Or, conversely, small aliens. He didn't think it was small aliens, though, because of the fact that he had the foreknowledge to know that they'd be masquerading as Americans, and he could hardly imagine minuscule aliens running around dressed up in a suit the size of a human.

Therefore, assuming the Doctor was correct (and he nearly invariably was) this disguised ship was a scout. That would also mean it would be much easier to defeat the alien invasion. _Perfect timing, once again,_ the Doctor beamed to himself, and decided to see how Atlanta was doing with her lunch.

Atlanta and the Doctor stumbled into each other much sooner than the Doctor had expected on the far side of the lake. After apologising, Atlanta offered him one of the bottles of Coke and then asked about the meteorite.

"It's not a meteorite," the Doctor answered cheerfully. "I believe it's an alien scout ship."

Atlanta stared at him. She might have learnt five weeks ago that travel in Time and Space was feasible, but that didn't mean she was falling for the alien invasion thing.

"Are you sure it isn't just a meteorite?" she asked him.

"It was _hollow_," the Doctor replied impatiently. "Meteorites aren't hollow."

Atlanta thought. "Do you think you should examine it again?" she asked hopefully.

"Why would I want to do that?" the Doctor asked curiously.

"Well, because I'm going to bug you until you do," Atlanta told him playfully.

The Doctor snorted. "For the sake of a quiet life..." he muttered. "Come on, Atlanta. And try not to get poisoned this time."

Atlanta grinned. She had no intention of nearly dying again.

* * *

Atlanta poked the rock with her finger. She took the Doctor's word for it, and accepted that it was an alien scout ship – at least to him – but it somehow couldn't get out of her head that it was identical to a rock. The Doctor, apparently, could, and was busily scanning it with a metallic wand – his sonic screwdriver.

"Doctor," Atlanta asked, "how do we get in?"

The Doctor shrugged and said nothing.

"Doctor," she repeated, "do you know how we can get in?"

"No," the Doctor replied quietly. "But I'll tell you something more worrying."

"What?"

"I don't think we want to go inside, anyway."

"Why not?" Atlanta asked. "If I can witness a mass-murder I can deal with an alien, Doctor."

"These aren't just any aliens, Atlanta," the Doctor reprimanded slightly. "These are Rutans."

This information didn't help Atlanta at all. "What are Rutans?" she asked.

"Shape-shifting natives of Ruta 3," the Doctor answered. "They've been engaged in a war with the Sontarans as long as anyone can remember. Both races are ruthless and prepared to destroy any planet they feel is strategically beneficial in order to advance with their mission. In fact, both are like your Americans, but nine hundred thousand times worse."

This didn't particularly help Atlanta, either. "I've never heard of the Sontarans or the Rutans!" she exclaimed irritably. "That doesn't help me at all!"

The Doctor sighed. "Well, you don't really need to know," he argued. "Just, you should know that you don't want to be caught with one of either race, all right? And if you're so adamant, ask Sarah when you meet her."

Atlanta rolled her eyes. "Fine, Doctor. I'll remember that."

"On second thoughts, you might not want to. I have a horrible feeling that she was quite traumatised last time she met a Sontaran."

"Fine. I'll remember that, too."

"Excellent. If you ever see Leela, that's who you should ask. She's even seen a Rutan. Sarah hasn't."

"Doctor!" Atlanta exclaimed irritably. "I don't know who those people are!"

"Really?" the Doctor asked. "When I woke you up, you asked where Sarah was, and that was before I started meddling in this time."

"When was this?" Atlanta asked him, her voice a strange mixture of confusion and fury.

"Well, it would be about eighty years in your future if I wasn't meddling now," the Doctor replied truthfully. The then realised that maybe a truthful response wasn't the best response he could have given. Maybe he should have lied and pretended it was during that whole fiasco with the injection.

"You mean that you're meddling in my time stream?" she demanded furiously.

"Not just your time stream," the Doctor pointed out. "Sarah's. The world's. One in three hundred people on this miserable planet will live past the end of this year if I don't. Besides all that, you told me to!"

Atlanta scowled at him. "How am I supposed to know if that's true or not?" she demanded. "As far as I'm concerned, Earth – this miserable planet, as you put it – is perfectly fine."

The Doctor wished her could show her the destruction of the 2090s. He couldn't however, for two reasons – firstly, because the TARDIS was all the way back in Melbourne, and secondly, because he would risk the two Atlantas meeting, which would cause an explosion known as Blinovitch's Limitation Effect. Or rather, the two Atlantas meeting would cause the effect which would, in turn, cause the explosion, but who's counting?

Anyway, it was for those reasons that he couldn't prove to Atlanta that mucking around in her time stream was a good idea, which made her storm off angrily, back to the shop. Or maybe she'd take a nostalgic wander around Ambukara to get reacquainted with the small town.

Just as long as she didn't steal the car and drive back to Melbourne, whatever she did was fine.


	14. Required Meddling

Atlanta wandered back into the shop with the vague notion of buying a cup of tea. After this, she decided to think about what the Doctor had said – purely because she had nothing else to think about, and it was playing on her mind.

She decided that if anyone in the world knew about future events, it was probably the Doctor. In fact, that was a relatively simplistic decision, given that she'd already experienced several materialisations and dematerialisations in his TARDIS, unconscious at the time or not. She also thought that ordering the Doctor to meddle in her time stream was a perfectly 'her' thing to do – everyone had always said she was bossy, or at least when she was determined enough to be.

Then, considering that both the Sontarans and these Rutans were supposed to be 900,000 times worse than the Americans, at given that only one in three hundred people survived, and then taking into consideration as well that both sides would give anything to defeat the other, Atlanta would have thought it hardly surprising that all of a sudden she gulped down her tea and ran outside to find the Doctor. After all... these Rutans could shapeshift.

* * *

The Doctor wasn't going to let Atlanta's storming off disturb him. He wanted to send the Rutans away from Earth, and he couldn't do that if he were chasing after angry assistants all the time. It almost made him wonder why he felt he had to go and collect Sarah in the first place. She'd been fine on Earth. As she told him, she'd gotten her career back together. Now, thanks to his stupid selfishness, he had to break a very important Gallifreyan law to change the future.

He wondered what Sarah's reaction would be on his returning to the future. As a human, no doubt her memories would change. He wondered what she would remember instead. He hoped, for his sake, that it wasn't something annoying like his abandoning her there. He'd never hear the end of that, even if it never happened.

The Doctor retrieved his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and buzzed it at the door. The door stubbornly refused to open for him, but just as the Doctor decided to put the screwdriver away, the door swung upwards and open. The Doctor, who had started to grin, was far less grinning when he realised there were Rutans inside.

The Rutans are well-known, to those who have heard of them, for their ability to drain electrical energy and use it to kill. Thankfully for the Doctor, they didn't have much stored, and the most they could do was knock him unconscious.

But it was enough.

* * *

When the Doctor awoke, he found himself inside a smallish space capsule – roughly the size of the rock outside. Through this brilliant realisation, it dawned on him that he must be inside the capsule.

It was very dark inside. The walls were made out of a bland silver metal, and the Doctor was trapped inside a compartment apparently near the back of the capsule. He could see through the compartment fine, as the barrier was merely a load of strong metal bars, and on the other side he saw a mass of buttons and levers. He was sure there must be a communicator there for communicating with the mother ship, as a scout ship probably wasn't a lot of use without a communications device.

The Doctor grinned and reached for his sonic screwdriver. The bars shifted aside and the Doctor skipped forward to try and send a message to the Rutan mother ship about Earth's unsuitability.

* * *

Atlanta found her way to the large rock just as the Doctor sped outside it. He appeared to be running very fast, and Atlanta soon caught on to the idea as the Doctor nearly pushed her over in an attempt to make her run, too.

"Why are we running?" she yelled, but the Doctor didn't reply. Atlanta decided that she could ask later and concentrated her energy on keeping up with him.

Suddenly, the Doctor dove behind a large rock, dragging Atlanta behind with him. Atlanta was about to ask why, when she heard a loud _BOOM_ behind her. A few seconds after that, Atlanta decided to peep over the rock. She saw a large smoky spot, and pieces of chunky metal lying around.

"What did you do?" she asked the Doctor breathlessly.

The Doctor grinned. "It's simple. First, I sent a message to the Rutan mother ship to say that Earth was completely unsuitable for invasion. Then, I switched a few wires around and the power overload made the capsule blow up."

"Why?"

The Doctor blinked. He didn't expect her to ask _why_ he just saved the world. Usually, people didn't.

"Do you want to hear about the 2090 I saw?" he asked her.

Atlanta hesitated. "Is it terrible?"

"Yes. But the Rutans caused it. They masqueraded as Americans far more vicious than yours – the real ones."

"Tell me."

Yet another statement that caught him completely off-guard. "The world is grey. Grey roads, grey footpaths, grey buildings, grey skies. There are only a mere ten thousand people in the city. They must wear grey, and obey several oppressive laws, or else they are re-educated."

"That doesn't sound worse than what we had two months ago," Atlanta told him.

"But it is, Atlanta. Re-education is a very inappropriate word for it. Legalised torture is much better."

"But didn't you just change everything?" Atlanta asked. "You did your bit of meddling."

"Well, _required_ meddling," the Doctor answered.

"You mean you have to do more?" Atlanta asked, horrified.

"Well, of course!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Those Rutans are probably powering up right now, and I can't imagine them being too happy to discover their capsule's blown up. Or, to put it more precisely, _been_ blown up. By me."

"What will they do?" Atlanta asked. She then sped up and continued talking. "Will they... torture? Like you say they do in 2090?"

"I doubt it," the Doctor answered. "They'll be far more likely to go on a killing spree."


	15. Explosives!

Not very happy was hardly a good descriptive word for the Rutans. While Atlanta discovered that her Dad's old car had been unpleasantly slimed by Rutans leeching the energy out of the car, the Rutans discovered that they had just lost their only means of escape. Basically, they were stranded on Earth. Since the Doctor was nearly invariably correct, the Rutans' plan was to wipe out the population of Earth. If nothing else, it would give them pleasure, and if something else, it would weaken Earth's resistance to a later Rutan invasion.

The Doctor and Atlanta walked back to the shop in time to see poor, innocent people being electrocuted by what looked like Atlanta to be green blobs with tentacles – but she didn't think the Doctor would care for that description very much, so she kept it to herself.

"What can we do?" she asked the Doctor quietly. She didn't want to look inside the shop, though the Doctor seemed quite intent on following the scene to its bitter end.

"I'm trying to think," the Doctor whispered back. Atlanta sighed impatiently as another strangled, dying cry met her ears.

"Explosives?" she asked. The Doctor turned his head away from the massacre.

"Explosives?" he demanded. "Is that the only thing you can think of?"

Atlanta shrugged. "What else defeats a jelly monster?" Oops. There went her plan of keeping that description to herself.

To Atlanta's surprise, though, the Doctor laughed. "I'll have you know, Atlanta, when I last saw a Rutan we blew it up."

"Then why don't you now?" Atlanta asked impatiently. Another strangled cry and a dull thud as the body fell to the floor.

"Well, at the time the Rutan had already summoned the mother ship!" the Doctor snapped, all laughter missing. "These two, they can't do any real damage."

Atlanta eyed the Doctor steadily. "Do you know what this reminds me of?" she asked him angrily. "That night. The night... everything changed."

The Doctor wasn't sure what to say. He hadn't remembered it, of course, but Atlanta's entire life had collapsed five weeks ago. She always seemed so bold and confident.

Atlanta pursed her lips at the Doctor's silence, which she assumed was out of refusal to admit he'd lost an argument – pathetically short argument or not. In actual truth it was because he wasn't sure whether to agree with her or keep arguing.

"You're despicable, Doctor," she told him suddenly. "You would have all the town die."

"And you would have all the Rutans die," the Doctor retorted, but he chose rather the wrong moment as a young girl – maybe six or seven – was the latest to scream her death. Evidently, the shop had been rather crowded.

Atlanta was infuriated. "_Explosives_," she told him stubbornly.

"Why?"

Atlanta shook her left arm angrily. "Because we need to save the town!" she snapped angrily.

"There are more subtle ways to defeat an alien invasion, Atlanta."

"Like what?"

"Heat."

Atlanta paused. "But it's so cold here," she protested.

"Exactly," the Doctor grinned. "The Rutans sent out a fog to make the Earth more habitable for them."

"How do we turn up the heat?" she asked, bewildered. "You can't just go up and say, 'Hi, Mr. Sun, we'd like it a bit hotter here please.'" She paused. "Well, I didn't think we could."

"There's a very obvious source of heat," the Doctor told her, grinning.

"And what's that?"

"Fire." He withdrew a matchbox from his pocket.

"What are you going to do, set the building alight?" Atlanta asked. "That's barely better than my idea."

"So you admit it is, at least, barely better then," the Doctor told her. The screaming inside ceased. "Quickly, before the Rutans leave and find us."

Atlanta sullenly took the matchbox, struck a match, and threw it at the familiar shop. "Won't that also kill them?" she asked. "Why were you making such a big deal out of my plan when yours was barely any different?"

"Barely any different? It was very different!"

"How?"

"I made it up."

Atlanta rolled her eyes and the Doctor grinned. "Come on," he told her, "I'd rather like to return to my TARDIS now."

* * *

It took several hours for the two to get back to Melbourne. The main reason, of course, was because the Doctor had gone on several detours, and it was midnight by the time they finally got there.

"That was the most unexpected Tuesday I've ever had," Atlanta yawned. The Doctor grinned.

"You'll be fine now," the Doctor told her. "We repelled the second invasion."

Atlanta paused guiltily. By virtue of the fact that she'd had a six-hour journey home, she'd had a lot of time to think about things.

"I'm not sure I want to stay here," Atlanta said almost apologetically.

The Doctor thought about this. "You want to join Sarah and I on the TARDIS, don't you?" he asked curiously.

Atlanta nodded. "I've got nothing here," she protested. "It was too dangerous to go school after year 10. The money my parents left won't last forever. Everyone I know died five weeks ago."

The Doctor grinned. "Well, I'll have to ask Sarah about it. Come on, Atlanta."

Atlanta gave the Doctor a grin of her own as she followed him into the TARDIS and it disappeared.


	16. A Saved 2090

Sarah blinked. She'd suddenly, for some unknown reason, realised she was in a bustling, sunny city that she didn't recognise, full of technology over a century into her future, and with no sign of the TARDIS. She did, however, locate a bag of jelly babies next to her, which she hoped meant the Doctor would actually turn up.

She wouldn't count on it, though.

More to Sarah's annoyance, she wasn't aware of how she got there, or what she'd been doing before realising she was there, and the only thing she remembered was that she'd been sitting there quite awhile.

She stood up to take a good look at her surroundings. She noticed many people bustling on the footpaths above her, and a few boats chugging contentedly along the river. She saw people. Many people. But no scarf-wearing curly-haired irritating Time Lord in sight.

It seemed like forever, although in reality it was only a few minutes, before a large blue 1950s-style police box materialised. It had a very nice knack for materialising wherever she happened to be, that was a benefit she had to (grudgingly) admit.

Her scarf-wearing curly-haired irritating Time Lord popped his head out of the box.

"Hello, Sarah," he greeted her.

Sarah folded her arms angrily. "What did you do?" she demanded.

"What do you mean, what did I -"

"I don't remember anything!" Sarah yelled angrily. "I've just been sitting here a very long time, and I'd no idea why since I don't even remember how I got here." She paused for dramatic effect before continuing. "And then, while searching for that dratted machine, all I found was a packet of jelly babies!"

The Doctor grinned. "I was wondering if they were going to disappear when I meddled in time," he admitted. He gratefully reclaimed the packet and chose an orange one to eat.

"You meddled in Time?" Sarah demanded angrily.

"You had injuries!" the Doctor protested indignantly. "I had to stop that from happening."

"Didn't you think of asking me?"

"I did!" the Doctor yelled. "I did ask your permission, Sarah, and you said, if memory serves – and it usually does – 'don't forget me'."

"I don't remember."

"Well, you won't remember, will you? I changed everything. You'll just have to take my word for it." He paused. "I don't suppose you remember Atlanta, either," he mused.

"Who?" Sarah asked.

"Nice Australian girl. Although, I don't suppose you would know her because there's no reason for you to have any more..."

Despite the fact he wasn't using complicated technobabble, Sarah still didn't understand him. When queried as to why he asked then, the Doctor grinned and replied, "she's waiting in the TARDIS."

Sarah nodded. "Like Leela?"

The Doctor was surprised by that analogy, quite forgetting that Sarah's memories of the time before the grey city shouldn't have been affected. He was also surprised, however, to find that it echoed his own thoughts somewhat.

"Yes, sort of like Leela."

"I suppose you'll be rushing back to 1976 to drop me back home, then."

"What?" the Doctor asked. "Of course not, you silly girl. I don't intend on heading back to your Earth for awhile yet."

"Then where are we headed?"

The Doctor grinned. "I rather thought the two of you would enjoy a vacation on Florana."

"I've heard that one before."

The Doctor held the door open for her. "I promise you, Sarah, if we don't get to Florana, I'll..."

"Stop wearing that ridiculous scarf?" Sarah asked mischievously.

The Doctor scowled. "All right, Sarah. I promise."

Sarah grinned triumphantly. The TARDIS door closed behind her and the large blue box disappeared, unnoticed by the busy people above.

The Doctor hoped it would actually reappear on Florana. He had no intention of ending his scarf-wearing days, before his next regeneration at least.


End file.
